Each year as the time approaches when the Man Booker judges meet to choose the winner I imagine what it is like to reread the six shortlisted novels. How many of us read a novel even twice in a few months let alone three times? But that is what judging the Man Booker means when all but the final six have been discarded.

One also wonders how even some of the greatest fiction in our literary pantheon would stand up to such close study over such a short time. The winning novel will have passed the severest of critical tests.

This year there has been a minor distraction. Do I detect sour grapes in some of those who support the possibility of a new literary prize, said to be a rival to the Man Booker? But that announcement was soon forgotten with the arrival in Britain from Canada of two of the shortlisted authors (one, Esi Edugyan, complete with eight-week old daughter), emphasising once again that this is a prize for fiction not only from authors in the UK, but also from the Commonwealth.

At several pre-prize events the shortlisted authors were given the opportunity of reading extracts from their works aloud to packed audiences and revealing something of the gestation of their fiction. And unusually in the 43 year old history of the Man Booker prize two of these authors are publishing novels for the first time.

It is one of the tenets of the prize that the judges consider only the novels they have before them, not the oeuvre of the writers. They have read 138 entries and in the process discovered impressive new talent which surely demonstrates that the writing of fiction in English is thriving. Inevitably novels by many familiar names have been discarded, to high voltage screams of protests by their supporters, but I’ll wager that few of those who raise their voices have actually read the full list of submissions.

As the Man Booker Prize’s literary director I have also noted another sign that the world of English fiction is changing. Looking at the judges’ longlist, published at the end of July, and one saw that several of the publishing houses involved were names new to the prize and by no means just from the metropolis as is customary. Even now, with the longlist of thirteen titles reduced to the shortlisted six, many of the surviving publishers’ names are by no means the most familiar.

If this year turns out not to be an exception then it becomes clear that some of the risks inherent in publishing new fiction are now being shouldered by a new publishing fraternity. Perhaps of major significance is happening.

Looking back in the prize archives to the moment in 1969 when the Man Booker Prize (or Britannia Prize as it was almost called) was announced I am reassured at the perspicacity of our founding fathers in setting out the ground rules for the prize.

From the very beginning there was just one criterion - 'the prize will be for “the best novel in the opinion of the judges”.’

The aim, from the Booker company, which originally sponsored the prize, was to attract 'the intelligent general audience'.

In the original press release announcing the prize: 'the real success will be a significant increase in the sales of the winning book... that will to some extent be shared not only the authors who have been shortlisted, but, in the long run, by authors all over the country.'

And that is what the Man Booker Prize is still achieving with such huge success today.